Five microscope slides.

These microscope slides comes from a 15-drawer cabinet found in the Herschel family home in the 1950s. The contents of this and a similar cabinet seems to suggest that they were used by successive generations of the family to store specimens, material and apparatus for carrying out experiments.

Four have printed labels from 'JAMES HOW & CO' each with a handwritten description of the sample on the slide. From left to right these are:

'Meteorite Pultusk, Poland'
'Meteorite N [ear] New Liberty, Iowa, USA'
'Granite Jersey'
'Meteorite Ensisheim Nov 7 1492'

Ensisheim is a village in Alsace. When the meteorite fell in 1492 the villagers who first found it chipped bits off to take as souvenirs until Maximilian, the Germanic Roman Emperor rescued it and had it preserved fastened to the wall of the Ensisheim Parish Church. It was taken down in 1793 during the French Revolution and moved to a national museum in nearby Colmer only to be returned to Ensisheim in 1803 where it remains today. During the 19th century scientific study of the make up of meteorites began and samples were removed and sent around the world for analysis. Today of the original 280 pounds only 123 pounds of this meteorite remain on display in the old City Hall of Ensisheim.

Alexander Stewart Herschel was one of those scientists involved in the 19th century with researching the make up of meteorites and was sent this sample to study.

The 5th slide has a printed label from 'H. BOECKER WETZLAR' of the 'Mikroscopisches Institut' with a handwritten description that reads 'Enstatite' and on the other side 'Radauthal Quartz'
'Enstatite' or Magnesium Silicate is a relatively common mineral found in metamorphic and some igneous rocks as well, more significantly for this collection, in stony and iron meteorites.
'Radauthal' is a village in Harz, Lower Saxony, Germany.